Iggy Pop Wants to Steal Your Eyeballs

This fall, film buffs roared with approval with news that immortal Italian horror director Dario Argento (Suspiria, Inferno) would be returning to the big screen with The Sandman—a sphincter-loosening cerebral mind-fuck starring none other than the Godfather of Punk himself, Iggy Pop, as the titular psychopath.

The project will draw funding from a high-profile Indegogo crowdfunding campaign offering a staggering array of perks, ranging from online film subscriptions, to roles in the film, to dinner with Iggy or Dario. The campaign ends tonight at midnight, so if you want in, you're gonna have to act fast.

Not to be confused with Neil Gaiman’s comic franchise of the same name, Argento’s film is a contemporary and utterly terrifying overhaul of the 18th century German folk story about “Der Sandmann”—a shadowy sadist who would visit children’s bedrooms at night and pluck their eyes out if he found them open.

In the modern version, "The Sandman” is a serial killer partial to removing his victims’ eyes with “a lethally jagged melon spoon,” according to Argento. The protagonist, a young man named Nathan, believes that he has killed the villain after the Sandman murders his mother, only to find the killer alive and well, and back in business in the apartment across from him.

For Iggy Pop—whose many silver screen credits include Cry-Baby, The Crow II: City of Angels and Coffee and Cigarettes—the role is a proverbial dream come true. “I have long been thrilled and fascinated by the amazing films of Mr. Argento,” says Iggy, “all of which are masterworks, and also compellingly strange, beautiful and full of relentless terror. If I could play the Sandman for him, it would make my life complete. I hope I have not just written my own epitaph.”

We sat down with Iggy to discuss the allure of playing the newest addition to the cinematic pantheon of murderous, sleep-depriving psychopaths.

Men's Health: The Sandman is violent, depraved, and profoundly disturbing. So what about this role appealed to you?

Iggy Pop: [laughing] Hey, that’s a good lead-in! There’s a side of me that was consistently bludgeoned by other people, emotionally, during my youth. And that continued through the music establishment, all through my life until I hit 50, when people finally started to give up. I learned to bury that shit and just smile through it. So I’m happy to have an outlet.

In the case of this script—and not to get too arty about it—the Sandman is somebody who’s been wounded and he’s compulsively trying to help somebody else out, which is his late mother, who lost her eyesight. He’s compulsively stealing other peoples’ eyes, ultimately to replace those of somebody he loved at one time.

MH: Have you always been a horror fan?

IP: Yeah. In fact, I own a Chucky doll! There’s a Chucky doll in my library. I had a very beautiful and wonderful little dog named Lucky—he’s passed away—and he was a fearless Maltese. The male Maltese, when they’re healthy, are one of the strongest dogs there are, pound-for-pound. He was just about Chucky’s height and when I’d pull out Chucky and put him on the floor, I’d say, “Hey Lucky, meet Chucky!” and he’d go nuts! [laughing] He’d be terrified and angry and he’d bark and growl, but he would not approach that doll.

MH: What separates a mildly-disturbing horror movie from one of the pants-shitting variety?

IP: Something that convinces you that there is someone in the world who is out to get you and they have a complete disregard for your misery and pain and fear. I’ll echo what Dario said about our film, which really reveals the terrifying nature of his own personal character. He said, “I do not like these happy Christmas movies. I want to replace the Christmas movie with strength." Whoa! He’s equating strength with some very bad things. He’s exploring the question that when given a truly strong position, what would people do?

MH: You said there’s a twisted nobility behind the Sandman’s actions. So what’s really going to unnerve viewers about his character?

IP: I think it’s got to revolve around the threat to your eyes. It’s actually where he attacks and that’s a scary thing. If you even touch your own eye now as we’re speaking—just a little poke on the socket with your finger...

MH: Argh!

IP: Yeah! Exactly! [laughing] It’s got to work like that. The way the thing is written right now, my original incarnation is a smarmy art dealer who’s kind of a Euro-trashy guy. I can play that! When you meet horribly destructive people in life, first there’s that little awakening in you where you think, I have a vague dislike of being around this person. The feeling grows until you realize that some people are poison.

MH: The Sandman is based on an old German legend essentially for controlling kids at bedtime. Were there any folk stories like that which freaked you out as a kid?

IP: Well yeah, the main folk tale was that there was a God in heaven and that you needed to get right with him before you died. Unfortunately—or later maybe fortunately—my dad thought that was a bunch of bull hooey and so I was not baptized or anything like that. He said, “I’m not putting that crap into my kid’s brains!” So when I got to be about seven or eight and had been relentlessly informed (about Hell) by the little pricks in elementary school, I began the custom of sleeping surrounded by my entire collection of little stuffed animals to protect me from God and from dying. I would lay there worrying about dying! My mother finally taught me the Lord’s Prayer but that one came and went pretty quickly. I really wasn’t into that.

MH:In the horror movies of the 70s, and particularly those that Dario directed, much of the violence was implied. More recently, directors are favoring more explicit depictions of gore and torture.

IP: Yeah, the dumbing down of our culture. Dumbing down and pumping up at the same time. It’s not just in horror but it’s in all genres of film. But the marketing of a movie about removing eyeballs is not my concern whatsoever. I work for free sometimes, because I can afford to, and I work for cheap when I want to, and then the other half of the time, I’m really fucking expensive. [laughing] This is a project that I had already signed onto for cheap, so I’ll do anything I can to get it somewhere. But I think that in life in general and in the arts in particular, I have never worried about how I’m going to get something across to the gang at high school, or the guys at the water cooler, or the kind of people who click on those links that come up when you Google something, like “What to Watch!” or “Chicken Attacks Obama Statue,” or “Rachel Ray Creampuff Disaster!” I don’t know and I don’t care. It seemed like a good script to me and that’s where I begin and end.

MH: You and Dario have put together a crowdfunding campaign with some jaw-dropping perks, like actually being in the movie or having dinner with you. Is crowdfunding here to stay?

IP: It will mutate into other forms, which will carry on the same idea of basically some sort of direct patronage. Patronage is the nature of capital economies when they begin to prosper. It happened during the Italian Renaissance, with the Borgias and the Medicis and so on, and you had the French king, the monarchs and even the religious establishment holding those positions. Even certain merchants, like in the Dutch Baroque era with the beginnings of Rembrandt.

In our era, we’ve introduced a “democracy,” but none of our countries are democracies—they contain democratic elements. If the states ever turned into a real democracy, we’d probably have another Civil War. As Aristotle defined democracy, he said, “Democracy is government by the poor,” and that’s what they’re afraid of.

Even though the man in the street might be getting poorer, crowdfunding is a legitimate form of entertainment and it’s fun to spend $5 to help Spike Lee make a movie that he can’t get backing for. Or if somebody wants to get a signed action figure from me and take a selfie, I think it’s fucking great! It’s very democratic and up front, you know? You can pay to get killed in a scene directed by Dario Argento. I would pay for that!

MH: Beyond working on the film, do have any music projects on tap for 2015?

IP: I’ll probably record, but nothing’s been written in stone yet. I’ve been writing and there are a couple of things coming out that I guested on, like Tomoyasu Hotei’s new album, the Japanese artist who’s known for the theme for Kill Bill. And if you remember the movie Repo Man, the director, Alex Cox, is a film teacher now at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and he’s crowdfunded what he calls “the world’s most expensive student film.” It’s based on a Harry Harrison book called Bill the Galactic Hero. It’s about a guy who makes a terrible choice. He’s delivering a pizza one day in a world of the future and two beautiful, semi-nude women invite him to park his bicycle and jump into a hot spring with them, but he says, “No, I have to deliver this pizza.” He happens to be delivering it to the General of the Totalitarian Space Force, so he’s drafted and sent to outer space to fight giant lizards. It’s a good script.

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